


Destiny: In the Eye of the Corrupted

by 3DCreepen07



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comedy, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, M/M, Multi, Original Character(s), Post-Red War (Destiny), Pre-Red War (Destiny), Sci-Fi, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25181920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3DCreepen07/pseuds/3DCreepen07
Summary: After accepting a gig at a hive warship, Callum, A human Titan, finds a ritual room. There Elara, an Awaken warlock, her light being experimented on by a group of Ascendant Hive Wizard, gets saved by Cal. Callum disrupting the ritual gets possessed by a new hive relic it's purpose unknown; Elara believing it dangerous attacks her savior in an attempt to end his life. Barely escaping Callum finds himself hunted by the vanguard and is marked as a rogue, Elara, and her fireteam leading the head for his life. Callum runs as he tries to get his fireteam his back together In an attempt to fix himself in a near-impossible suicide mission.
Kudos: 4





	Destiny: In the Eye of the Corrupted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helping strangers can sometimes be a real double-edged sword.

I’ve found that shooting enemies in the back is usually always the best way to go when on the usual strike mission. Simple tricks can sometimes accomplish this. Though the normal “What’s that over there?” doesn’t really work on a hive knight, to be honest, so in such a situation employing your fireteam members to act as “meat shields” does just fine. But for truly optimal results and for those like myself who don’t belong to one it’s best if the beast never knows you were there.

A shrill shriek echoes out as an enraged knight turns towards my position, ax in hand, shaking off the bullet I had just placed in the back of its head. Relic iron is tricky in that way. When beasts like this don’t have the charity to keel over, usually it’s best to have some kind of backup plan. I drop the sniper I had on hand, turn, and run. In a perfect world, the knight would have crumbled to dust and fucked off to the Ascendant Realm or what have you with a pleasing “crumple” and left me free to leave the room undiscovered. Instead, it’s now enraged form was chasing me down the corridor, bellowing for a chance at my gray matter.

It’s a shame too. Whoever my last fireteam members were had probably worked hard for that sniper, though, to be honest, it didn’t seem too effective on the knight so it’s no skin off my scrot id say.

I crash through the closest gate and slammed it behind me, bracing myself for the impact.

“What the heck was that?” Belial materializes in the air, dust from the stagnant hive ship air pushing off her shell like smoke. The knight pounds into the gate, the heels of my boots scraping over the repugnant hive flooring.

“Callum!” Belial was screaming now, doing nothing to help me hold back my possible doom like always. Even then I want to swat the little shit, even with a murderous knight held back by just an inch of worm god chitin and with my chances of escape evaporating by the second. I ran to the largest opening and tore back the vile hive husk covering it. 

“Do you have any idea what you’ve just aggravated you” she had let out an irritated grumble trying to find the right pejorative to fling my way “ you idiot!” I swung a leg over the casement. “A hive knight with a thick skull and even more impenetrable anger management issue...” The gate shudders as the knight pounds the far side.

“That ax, that armor, that was a Darkblade you idiot where in the heck are we?” despite being a featureless nagging hunk of metal, Belial, manages a look both infuriated and horrified at the same time.

I didn’t stop to reply (I rarely do) but vault down into a pile of what I could only assume was dead thralls, which were thankfully the chosen kind rather than cursed variety. Landing is always important. I’ve done a lot of falling and it’s not so much how you fall that should concern you so much as how you land. Luckily, nothing ended up in anything like the last time. I shiver at a memory I’d rather not touch on.

I fought my way out of the dreg heap and strode towards a particularly grimy set of hallways, gasping for breath and hoping any of the living thralls were too busy with eating filth to hunt me down. Their subtle crackling hisses offering me no brevity and their mandibles cracking bones no lack of pep in my step. 

I strode off, across crystal-lined bridges, forcing myself through the festering hive barnacles, cutting a straight path where the clanking of chains hanging from ceilings and the subtle, distant screeching can be heard, and the walls pulsing orange heptagonal every few feet looking as though it wished to escape. Somewhere back at the scum-covered halls, a thrall bayed, and that put the fear in me.

Belial, my ghost, offered no light to illuminate my path. The fucker couldn’t even handle that. One thing I knew for sure was if you angered one thrall many followed.

Any day of the week I’m one of the best runners in the tower or maybe even the city, it’s one of the things I’m truly proud of. Scared shitless I can even outrun a sparrow.

Two years ago, in the “Enforcers incident” with Andromeda, I ran from a patrol of fallen vandals, five of them on big old heavy Pikes. Sometimes the important thing in running away I find is not how fast I can run but how much faster I can run than the next man or woman in this case.

Unfortunately, she did a fucking piss poor job of slowing the pikes down. There’s a rather long list of things I’d rather not die too and nowhere near the top was dying on the end of a wretch’s Arc Spear. Knowing Stardust though that ghost is probably still shaking in its shell for a chance to show me what for but I’m sure Andromeda understood. I mean what’s one death to an immortal... or a couple?

  
  


In any event, when I say the speed in which I ran at the sight of that thrall was breakneck you better fucking believe me. I sprinted for the stairs, weaving a dangerous path around still feasting thralls with death on their minds and idling acolytes that have yet to be alerted fully to my presence. I shouldered past my “enemy” with considerable speed not allowing them to come to grips with the situations. 

Or at least I attempted to shoulder past, failed, and bounced off a knight as if it was made from Plasteel Plating. I turned, rubbing my shoulder. Something in the eyes watching from those slits swept away in a cold wash of fear any inclination I had to complain. Its eyes haunted me. They were wispy like fire. The irises were white, the whites gray. My shoulder ached as though infection ate at them.

Cowards can easily be divided into two broad groups. Those paralyzed by their fear, and those galvanized by it. Fortunately, I belong to the latter group and scrambled from the ground and bolted to the nearest unreachable nook.

In the next half-second, I realized that behind the grime was a rather strange fixed room and then I saw her. A tattered figure laying on a chitin table bent over some burden. For one ridiculous moment, I thought it was a guardian laying there, but it wasn’t possible it’s not likely for one to be sprawled in such a manner.

A pale hand lifted; sickly and unnatural crystal light glimmered on its crackly skin. I didn’t turn my head even a fraction. Conviction seized me by the throat. That had not been any ordinary wizards. Outside, it felt as though penance accompanied them. I would have run headfirst into dozens of thralls to get away from them. Hell, I’d have flattened that knight several times over to put some space between me and those old crones. The walls themselves had smarted, heat raging through them.

A scream tore through me like glass. My eyes widen and pulse quicken as the girl convulses on the table, my heart thudding like one of Saladin’s banner gongs. The scream came again, desperate, terrified... human despite her purple skin indicating she was very much not. It was the kind of scream that made your blood run cold. It pierced the brain and ignited some primeval pathway. Adrenaline surged through my veins, but for a coward like me, it’s never fight or flight, it was only flight.

I jammed myself farther through the moldy crag, wedging both shoulders into the gap and splitting more chitin. Some kind of tugging stretched across my back. Because right now I need a malfunction of wardrobe? Once more the traveler itself was crapping on me from a height. I swear if I get out of this alive I’m shoving this mark so far up Zavala’s ass he’ll be tasting field weave for weeks the bald fucking bastard.

I look to the left. Glowing green hive glyphs covered the wall, each like some horrifying and twisted insect caught in a trap. To the right, more of them, reaching up from where the screaming awoken had laid. They seemed to have grown along the sides of the room, like a spider’s web.

“Callum that’s a guardian!” Belial shouted, her warnings turning to irritation at being ignored.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” I pulled free and glanced back at the knight in the doorway. It hadn’t reached me yet but the tugging I could’ve sworn. Its hands scraped at the walls for me. “There’s no time—” I hadn’t much care for white knighting my way to the screaming guardian though admittedly worry had gnawed at me. Not for her, of course, but her screaming could only serve to attract more hive to my location.

I stuck both arms through the hole I’d made and launched myself out. I made it two meters and came to a grinding halt with my back wedged into the frame. Something dark and freezing stretched across my back again, feelings of a thousand padded hands pasted me to the spot. Despite my strength, the strands of it closed movements and resisted any further advance.

I seized the sill with both hands and tried to launch myself forwards, managing an advance of a few inches, my mark and armor tearing, and rattling. Some thing gripped my back, pulled even harder, pressing my arms and legs back and threatening to propel me into the room if I reduced my grip even slightly.

Now, the traveler may have gifted me a titan’s build but I try to avoid any arduous exercise, at least whilst clothed, and I’ll lay no claims to any great strength. Raw terror, however, does wonders and if something stood between me and swift escape, I’ve exuded brilliant bouts of strength.

Expecting the arrival of the knight’s hands invading my personal space called for just the right amount of panic. It wasn’t the thought of being dragged back in and having my ghost used as a toothpick after making a meal of me that worried me—although it normally would... A lot. It was the idea that whilst they were using me for batting practice, the coven of wizards would complete their ritual, and any chance of my or anyone’s escape would seem hilariously impossible.

Whatever had stretched across my arms and legs had stopped tightening, like it used all its resiliency. It felt more like thousands of misshapen hands now, gripping across my arms and back. Fuelled by desperation, I struck out and made a solid connection, booted heel to chitin hearing it crunch against my boots. The added thrust proved enough. The arms bit deeper, like a pounding hammer grinding through me, then something gave. It felt more like I gave than whatever was gripping me, as if I shattered and it ran through me, but still I won free and tumbled out in one piece rather than many.

As far as victories go it proved fairly Pyrrhic, my prize being my losing cognizance as I was face to face with wizards probably doing the most of blasphemous ritual. Though upon looking at the beings who would soon end my existence, they seemed almost as if it was theirs who was in jeopardy. Now I’m no genius my broken body can attest to that. But unless these wizards deepest fears were cowardly titans whose consciousness was waning, I doubt it was I who instilled this fear.

Out of the corner of my eye, a brightness that sears into my retinas appeared making me close them for fear of going blind. It was a brightness to rival the sun itself. It was the guardian who had risen now with a look so murderous it made the wizards reel. A Sunsinger she was, and a particularly pissed off one at that descended on her enemies like a Valkyrie on Ragnarök.

The warlock clearly had the reach, so the wizards tried backing out fast. Heavy emphasis on “tried”. She yanked one of the wizards forwards with a hand, punching with her other, brushing aside the wild swing of the wizard’s left with her elbow. The warlock’s radiant fist pounded into the creature’s face, knuckles impacting from beady eye to gnawing mandible. The wizard pulverized into dust and scum, hitting the floor with an almost soundless puff, mixing with only more grime and residue.

The awoken glanced down at me. I swear she was grinning. The wizards began a slow advance, passing their magic from hand to hand, she charged. The remaining two wizards jigged to each side, intending to unleash their magics and dodge clear, but the warlock came too fast, threw out a grenade that burned like a star at the second, and reached out at the third. The wizard could do no more than attempt the killing blow; nothing else would save it from the warlock’s grasp. The exchange was lost in the collision. The woman hammered into her opponent, driving it back a yard and igniting it with solar flame and slamming it into the wall. She held there for a heartbeat—The remaining wizard slid to a crumpled heap at the foot of the wall, fragments of scorched chitin crackling.

By the time the Guardian would do what I can only assume show that second wizard their own insides. I succumbed to my injuries and gave in to unconsciousness.

Waking up in the kinds of places I wake up in, and with the kind of company I keep, it pays to keep your digits and dangly bits in check. The bed I laid on was a lot more jagged and scum covered than I like. As jagged and rough as a hive war ship’s flooring, in fact. And it smelled like one too, that is to say like shit. The glorious safe moment between being asleep and being awake was over.

I rolled onto my side, a pulse of pain surges through my body. Either I’d not been unconscious very long, or those wizards haven’t turned me into void light crystals yet. The Wizards! Belial! staggered to my feet at that, expecting to see myself on a ritual table ready to have been experimented on by wizards. Nothing. At least nothing to see more than a dingy hive ritual room.

“Shit.” My body hurt more than seemed reasonable. I hardly remember much except falling and... that guardian. Flattening my palm Belial sprung from my pack. She seemed fine for a near-worthless hunk of the traveler. “Cal? No need to worry I’m still by your side… unfortunately.”

“pfft worried? You’d be as useful to me dead than alive get over yourself,” Looking around, I hadn’t noticed her nor the wizards she’d fought. If you can even call what she did a fight. I shook thoughts of those beasts and that ravenous woman. 

An odd tug at my chest made every breath a struggle; Soon my lungs were desperate for oxygen, but my body wasn’t cooperating. My eyes bulged as a string of harsh coughs shook my form, I walk like my limbs don’t really belong to me and each step is a negotiation rather than an order. Everything hurts now. Every damn thing. This feeling was foreign, but I felt as if I knew what would happen if I hadn’t fought it. Grabbing the wall for support, I grip handfuls of Barnacles and egg pods and plead for the agonizing pain in my chest to stop. My fighting felt like it had no effect. Tears blurred my visions as I tried to wait out the pain. 

Nausea and exhaustion sucked at me like some colossal leech on my energy. If I stopped moving for a second, I would pass out. For now, though, I need to get the hell out of dodge. There’s no way I’m finishing this mission banshee can forget these calibrations, in fact, knowing him he probably already has. But where to go? 

When in doubt, run?

I took off, along dark corridors, lost but knowing in time that at some point I’d be able to call my ship. I kept my pace on the sensible side of breakneck again putting a few miles behind me and that situation can only make things better; I think. Keeping your eyes forward is always a good rule to keep, the more you try looking over your shoulder the less time you have to keep your pace. Sometimes, though, you can’t follow all the rules. Something about what happened to my body demanded my attention, and I shot another glance back at the room I’d just escaped.

  
  


Slam! At first, I thought I’d run into a wall. Only to discover the wall was actually the hand extended in front of me. I looked up and found myself staring into the guardian’s blank helmet.

“What—” My vision cleared just in time to see what I thought was my savior’s fist descending. The world went away again. I felt a rattle like my brain shook in my skull as a fist made contact with it. 

I came back to consciousness once again. This time held up vertically against a wall and hurting in so many places that I forewent ignorance or slick-talking and went directly into the asking of stupid questions.

“Where am I?” aching and faltering.

The faint unnatural light and rough chitin table indicated I was back in that damned room. “Help!” I tested my strength, but the ache had finally set in. “Help!”

“Calm down no need to shout.” The voice came from the shadows by the door. I squinted. A marigold colored ghost floated in place, looking back at me.

“Where’s your guardian! Didn’t I fucking help the two of you!”

“Don’t worry we’re not trying to hurt you.” It flew forward, the flickering light gleaming on his chromatic shell. I check my surroundings immediately to my left a little too close for comfort was an awoken woman eying me cautiously. This time helmetless like I found her. As I look closer, I'd say she was beautiful, but it’s hard to say what she is behind the layers of wizard scum still covering her face after her revenge. Though her eyes, they were a piercing blue that seemed incorruptible.

“Not trying to hurt me? You’ve already done a fucking terrible job at convincing me of that.”

“Well, if you hadn’t run off like a chicken with its head cut off El wouldn’t have had to do that now would she.”

“you guys have a really funny way of showing gratitude, fuck, and I thought Belial was annoying.”

Annoying? Speak for yourself. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more incompetent guardian. I mean come on save us? Elara had that covered, and you had to stumble your way into the fray and complicate things.”

“Oh yeah, if you consider screaming bloody murder “having things covered” then sure she was definitely on top of that situation.” the ghost seemed without response.

“What’s wrong, little ghost, you gonna sick your guardian on me again?”

“y’know what I just might you- “

“Nolan!- “The first word the awoken had uttered. I never liked the type, always had their ghost speak for them like some kind of machine, it’s never not Cliché. The room was quiet for a mere moment. Though it felt a lot longer, even the ghost had been surprised at the outburst. The girl knelt to my level the usual way warlocks rest. Legs underneath her thighs, while resting her buttocks on the heels. Her hands folded modestly in her lap. 

She was still entirely too close. Our noses could almost touch knees grazing my thigh and the way she looked at me as though I was a puzzle to be solved trapped me in my spot.

“Your light.” She hadn’t said it in a questioning tone, though I took it as such.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“It’s so faint.”

“Wow, very vigilant might I also make an astute observation that your a bit too close and smell like a thrall orgy.” The ghost huffed but again was immediately shot down by the girl; She hadn’t moved despite my comment.

“Again what about it?” I had a hard time mustering irritation towards her. I fully intended to inflect so but the comment hadn’t quite come out as bitchy as I’d like for some reason.

“For weeks...” she paused, repulsion marking her face then.

“We were captured here two weeks back.” Another pause. Just as inert as the last. “There was no plan for escape, they tore me from my ghost but hadn’t destroyed him. Day after day they scraped at my light, those wizards. They bore their way into my body as they pleased for reasons I hadn’t known, the only thing I could’ve relied on was the fear; the pain. I can still feel them, wriggling in me like maggots on a freshly picked corpse. “As the warlock was talking her lip curled, and her nostrils flared. The rage she harbored for them was almost tangible and yet her face didn’t read murderous like it had when she had her way with them. 

“What’s that have to do with me again?” a tinge of surprise traces her face. Nolan again showing his irritation for my treatment of his dear guardian. 

“I just thought you had gone through the same.” Genuinely curious, the question had slid from her lips as she had just lost someone who she could possibly relate to.

“Sorry, princess but I just stumbled into this castle randomly, id asks for us to get out of here before the old hag gets here but your sort of covered in them. Sorry, you had to go on that long-winded tangent but our meeting is completely coincidental.”

“I see, but your light?” for a moment melancholy could be heard from her voice but it quickly changed back to that typical warlock inquisitiveness.

“Oh well, yeah.” I present Belial, her shell making it seem as normal as any other. She looked upon it inquisitively as though I had gone insane. Before she could inquire the shell sprung open showing the irreparable damage, the ghost sustained with alabaster light seeping from its aged cracks.

“Belial here can’t hold light for shit. It’s a pain in the ass but she’s all I have. She can’t bring me back so If it isn’t too terrible a fucking bother id like to leave this hell before this only life I have is taken by the hive.” Her sob story almost had me but quickly I snap back to my old self. I couldn’t afford to care for other guardians. They could never understand the licking of wounds. They are reckless because they can be.

Nolen chirped “see... about that-.” Elara glanced back at her ghost Nolan, raising her right arm as to silence him.

Then the tug returned as seething as ever. The voice though was unexpected. It was low, with a harsh huskiness that felt like forks on porcelain and with a hint of power behind each syllable. I couldn’t parse what the voice had said no thanks to the fact that The pain felt like a hunter taken a burning solar knife to my blasted skull. The feeling almost immediately toppled me and within moments instead of helping my descent, the warlock produced a hand cannon backing up as she does so as if she’d seen an enemy.

The voice only gets quieter as I clutch my chest. My legs are spent, and there is a rising feeling of nausea from my stomach. I feel a soft panic that grew only as I realize the barrel of the hand cannon clutched firmly in the straight-faced awoken’s hands was now pointed my direction and as it traced my movements, it only confirmed her target was me.

  
  


“Fuck me running lady, why don’t you-.”

“quiet! I see your strident sense of humor hasn’t left you so I know you are yourself but listen to me. If you are a guardian of the light, the traveler’s light you WILL hear me out. You’re right about one thing I don’t know what it’s like to be weak but there is something in you now, something vile and if you truly follow the traveler and wish to protest it and the city you will lay down your life for it.

“ First of all ouch weak? Now i didn-” I didn’t understand what I was hearing, or perhaps some part of my brain was sensibly stopping me from understanding. 

“That ritual. I know you feel it inside you. A very powerful hive instrument... that odious relic would’ve been inside me had you not interrupted, and for that, I am eternally grateful but I can’t let you leave this ship,” Elara spoke into the silence of my horror.

  
  


“But—” I’m not the brightest guardian but I know one thing for sure. 

“Guardians are made of the Traver’s light. The traveler’s light can’t be controlled.” She glanced towards Nolan, who roosted on her now flat hand left hand while her right still firmly gripped her hand canon. A projection sprung to life before us. It revealed an oblique hive construct, a bulbous orb with a leathery and pliable look shifts uneasily as a disgusting creature sloshes in it with jagged cone-shaped husk jutting alongside it. Three piercing Green eyes stab through my skull.

“Nolan caught this while captured, neither of us was sure what it was but after you barged in it was gone.”

“Th-that could mean anything. You could’ve easily destroyed it in your little tirade it looks sensitive enough and I mean could something that large possibly be inside me!?” I put some anger into it—though it felt desperate and artificial and I’m sure they felt it. 

“Any other time id agree I mean they spent weeks preparing me for this horrific experiment so why did it stick to you of all people?”

“See it just makes no sense, right? Right!” I strained a bit, not enough to warrant a bullet in the head but the then contemplating warlock steadied her hand at the slight movement. It was obvious I needed a miracle to get out of this situation.

“Normally it wouldn’t but with your ghost the way it is, I can’t be sure. I may have destroyed the tool, but it’s too much of a risk.”

“So you’re gonna kill me on a hunch? A  _ can’t be sure? _ This must be a joke.”

The warlock glances downward, her mouth pursed but slightly open and loose. Her eyes are fixed as if she’s looking at something a yard behind me. In her confusion, I look for a means of escape. My body hadn’t been in any better shape but fear of imminent death made for a considerable incentive. Tapping softly against the floor. Luckily, Belial understood the message and dematerialized from my pack. 

“Don’t worry, I’ve been listening in I think I can get us out of here but it’ll take a lot out of us,” I say nothing but she understood what my silence meant. Dematerializing to my pack unseen again, I think of ways to stall for time. Elara’s mind seemed racked, I couldn’t blame her but I’m not going to sit here and let some warlock be my end.

A slight tingle ran just underneath my skin. No, it felt as though life itself had run through each of my nerves, and my body nearly jumped as the electrical current pulsed through me. I never get used to this feeling, the surge of power that rises through my body as Belial tries her best to contain her light. Shit, I’m going to really feel this if I get out of here.

“Enough thinking we don’t have the time. I can’t afford to let you roam free without knowing what’s in you. I don’t want to hurt you but if you aren’t willing to submit, I may have no choice but to take action.” Elara raised the short-handled dark red hand cannon, its paint chipping slightly indicating its age. I felt a tingle on my cheekbones, my lips, forehead, like pins and needles, a kind of pressure building. The skin under my armor buzzed, almost crackling with energy. 

“Listen I Don’t get what’s happening, but maybe we can look for it together. I mean that things almost the size of my head it can’t have gone too far or been completely broken right?” There is a look of utter puzzlement in Elara’s gait, enough to send the hairs on the back of my neck on edge. I mean she’d been here awhile I can’t be sure what she’s been through and now my life is in her hands. Something weighed on her and I’m not sure my words are getting through.

“Choose titan, what is it going to be?” 

Can’t we figure this out toge-“

NO! It’s far too dangerous... The hive has little care or compassion. My head swims with the regret of trying to  _ figure things out _ . My heart feels as if my blood had become tar as it struggled to keep a steady beat. I need this to be over even if it means killing my own.”

“You aren’t just killing me! I will be gone if you pull that trigger, that’s death real death all on a hunch. You can’t let it drive you to kill Guardians off half-baked logic can you?” Elara let out a shaky breath. The dread and anxiety on her face were unmistakable. In my frozen state, I let out a shaky breath, closing my weary eyes. My heart ricocheted off my rib cage. Come on, come on! Almost like a rippling pop at the base of my neck, something told me it was time.

“I’m sorry Guardian sorry I couldn’t even get your-.” At that moment, I struck with fistfuls of thunder. The electrical current shooting my nerves far too fast for my brain to even register it. Like a thunderbolt, I pound the ground immediately between the two of us, obliterating it as I do. Surprise lep from both our faces as the surge of energy gets directed to my heels allowing me to hop back several feet from The Awoken woman. Instead of finding the nearest exit, I make one charging the most adjacent chitin wall with my shoulder crackling with Arc energy blasting past it will ease. It had only been mere seconds but I could already feel myself winding down. I cast my eye across the carnage, looking behind the table. Elara lay sprawled, a stream of blood on her forehead.

  
  


The fear of reeling from this surge of power spurred me into action.

“Which direc—” Belial was way ahead of me using the last of her power to point me in the direction of the closest exit. I followed as best I could, trying my best to keep composure after using so much power, keeping my pace up. My traditional moment of triumph at escaping yet again was curtailed by the sounds of the woman approaching down the corridor convinced me to give chase. We crossed a wide space stacked with glowing membranes and Huge Wurm pods, passed dozens of hanging chains, the sails of hive banners poking up above the wall beside us. By starlight, we crossed a quay and descended steps to the edges of the hive vessel where my ship hummed calmly in space. 

Belial quickly transmat me onto my ship but not before I could look back at Elara, the butterfly robed awoken warlock her face one of defeat and weary. One eye shut as to avoid blood seeping into it further. something told me this wouldn’t be the last I’d see of her.


End file.
